SUPPORT OUR TROOPS: PATRIOTS RALLY FOR AMERICA III, SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 2003 IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

BUMP!!!

How very kind of you to question my accurate use of the word "elderly." I am, however, able to face that adjective with a measure of honesty, since the big six-oh is exactly seven days away for me.

LOL.

Congressman Billybob

But, whatever you do, FTH, don't ask him to stir the coals!

With his stick! His stick! The Army Ranger was stirring the coals with his stick. I have to remember to enunciate.

...since the big six-oh is exactly seven days away for me.

AHA! I knew there was a reason I liked you the moment I met you. You're a Capricorn; and they are known to be honest, loyal and true friends, intelligent, organized, resourceful, great leaders, humble... In case you didn't catch on, I'm also a capricorn. :-)

Early Happy Birthday wishes to you, Congressman!

In-corrigible, I tell ya!

Sorry I haven't been in lately, but I been busy sending out messages and posting details about the DC gig on the 18th. I have to edit them about 10 times each to make sure all the profanity is out.......I didn't know I had so many "mutha's".....er.....I mean mothers.....anyway, thanks for all the help and support. I'm sure I speak for Bruce (grunt68) and Joel (PointmanHerc) Kernodle is telling you we are looking forward to hookin up with ya'll on the 18th.
All of my weapons have been taken away from me, so I'm coming unarmed. DAMMIT !!! Semper Fidelis, Dane Brown
http://itsjustanamthing.com

Put me down for one of those special tee shirts.

Morning bump and best wishes for a Happy Birthday! (in 6 days).

I'd also like to extend Happy Birthday wishes to tgslTakoma; her big day is January 6.

Here we go...the enemy within is organizing. A new thread this morning:

Buses from Ithaca to Jan. 18 National March on Washington NO WAR AGAINST IRAQ! (barf)

We're going after our enemies on both fronts...at home and abroad.

Roosevelt group to prepare to deploy
By JACK DORSEY, The Virginian-Pilot
© January 3, 2003
Last updated: 10:00 AM

The Roosevelt.

Background Coverage:
A new year, an uncertain future

NORFOLK -- The carrier Theodore Roosevelt battle group could be headed to sea as soon as Monday for training that would certify it for early deployment, sources said.

The Roosevelt is not scheduled to deploy until late spring, but smooth sailing in the certification trials could take the George Washington, another Norfolk-based battle group, off the redeployment hook.

The GW, which returned from a six-month deployment two weeks ago, is the Atlantic Fleet's ``ready carrier,'' meaning it is on call in case of an emergency. It has been ordered to be ready to redeploy within 96 hours notice.

Once the Roosevelt completes the mandatory training, which takes about three weeks, it becomes the Atlantic Fleet's ``ready carrier,'' and the GW is likely to go into the shipyard for scheduled work.

Many crew members from the Roosevelt, its air wing and support ships are being told to prepare for the possibility that they won't return to port after the training if they are called upon to beef up forces in the Middle East.

A 12-ship battle group led by the Norfolk-based carrier Harry S. Truman deployed Dec. 5 and is in the Mediterranean Sea.

Three ships from the GW battle group remain deployed: the guided missile frigate Kauffman, the guided missile destroyer Barry and the destroyer Arthur W. Radford. They are scheduled, at least for now, to return to Hampton Roads this month.

Meanwhile, the Navy says it has notified the Puerto Rican government that it intends to use its bombing range on the island of Vieques as early as Jan. 13 to help train the TR battle group and its air wing in a new round of bombing and shelling practice. The maneuvers, involving aircraft and ships' guns, could last up to 29 days. No live ammunition will be used. Continue

bump to the top one more time

I appreciate the work you're doing to get folks here. We're doing all we can here to make sure the trip is well worth it.

Thanks! It's going to be a great day for patriotic Americans to get out and support our troops.

To those bringing signs, make the letters LARGE and THICK so they can be read from a distance.

I want a T-Shirt!

Great! Bring some string and tape so I can hang it around my neck again. I think the string was torn off from the last rally.

Good morning, my friend,
I need to know the particulars, from you or kristinn. Is there going to be a rally-type get-together somewhere? Or is this solely a two-part demonstration? Is there a theme to be addressed? What is it? (So I can get on it.)
Here's a suggestion for a sign I'd like to see, and would cheerfully carry:
If You Liked Adolf Hitler
You'll Love Saddam Hussein
[With Saddam Hussein's name crossed through and replaced below with:] Ramsay Clark
That is intended to p*ss off the other side, big time.
Hope to see you then. I'm trying to clear my decks for action, now.

Congressman Billybob

Click for latest column on UPI, "Incision Decision in the Senate" (Now up on UPI wire, and FR.)

As the politician formerly known as Al Gore has said, Buy my book, "to Restore Trust in America"

Kristinn, thank you so much for all you are doing for this cause. Some folks have asked about speakers, and the MOVEOUT contribution to this Joel Kernodle. We are delagating responsibilites, Joel is our media representative and spokensman, and would be glad to speak with the FReeper assembly, also. I am now going to start a series of posts on how we got involved. Btw, our main goal is to keep any monument, but especially the shrines that are dear to us, from being defiled. Secondly, we resent the hell outta these communist pukes speaking for Our Dead.

We first became of professor of psychology, Leonard Magruder

Students challenge professors on Vietnam

The student auxiliary at the University of Kansas Leonard Magruder - Founder/President Former professor of psychology - Suffolk College, N.Y.

STUDENT ORGANIZATION AT UNIV OF KANSAS LAUNCHES NATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO OVERTHROW DECADES OF ACADEMIC LYING ABOUT VIETNAM- CALLS FOR PROTEST IN WASHINGTON

Leonard Magruder, President of Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform, the student auxiliary at the University of Kansas, today sent out 80 complimentary copies of his documentary, "How the Campus Lied about Vietnam," as requested by universities and vet organizations all over the country. This is part of a new national campaign by his organization to fight media bias against 3 new films that challenge the false view of the Vietnam War that has been institutionalized on campus to protect those who would not serve.

As reported in an Oct. 6 editorial in the "San Diego North County Times", "Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform wants to provide Americans with a more accurate portrayal of the Vietnam War." Also, "They're asking college and high schools to include Vietnam veterans in class discussions ... the veterans' perspective is dramatically different from teachers who learned about the war from media coverage."

Said Mr. Magruder, "The campus version of the Vietnam War needs to be discredited because it is based on lies of the 60's now being rejuvenated and recycled to attack the nation's new war effort. This could lead to another polarization and defeat. This is also our response to the infamous "Not in Our Name" ad signed by many who were leaders in the 60's war protests calling the current war on terrorism "unjust, immoral, and illegitimate." These are the same words they used in the 60's to hand Southeast Asia over to genocide and tyranny."

Lisa Makson in an article in FrontPageMagazine.com said, "Everyone knows that American universities have become centers of political indoctrination, whose faculties regularly stomp on the academic freedom of their students."

David Horowitz, a former leader of the anti-war movement of the 60's expands on this. "Beginning in the mid-60's, the left made a concerted effort to take over our colleges and universities. Four decades later,they have a stranglehold on hiring, teaching, and administering most of our schools in all 50 states. As they took control they trampled free speech, banished conservative professors, and turned our schools into little more that huge megaphones for anti-American rhetoric."

With the recent more objective books and films about the Vietnam War, the veterans of that war can now show how faculty and students lied in the 60's leading to the current academic situation. With that, the entire edifice of indoctrination will come tumbling down. This must be done because, once again the leftist tyranny on campus is fatally misinterpreting the current world crisis, and this will again lead to disaster. For massive growing complaints nation-wide from students see www.noindoctrination.org.

At the anti-war protest in Washington on Oct. 26 protesters, mostly university people, shouted from the Vietnam Memorial (The Wall), "If these men were here today they would be with us." That is certainly not likely to be true of the vast majority represented by The Wall. In a recent poll of Vietnam vets by VFW Magazine, "90% of those who saw heavy combat are proud to have served their country. 66% said they would serve again if called upon." This effort by the protesters to falsely manipulate those who can't fight back is a disgrace. Said Mr. Magruder, "At the next demonstration coming up I would like to see 100,000 Vietnam vets form a line, away from the Wall, but between it and the protesters, to say, "These men would not be with you in your "Hate America" campaign. They gave their lives fighting for a just cause, the freedom of South Vietnam from Communist aggression from North Vietnam. You lied about them in the 60's and you are lying about them again. And what you are teaching about the war is a lie also."

About 80 organizations will initially be showing the Magruder film; universities, (such as Univ of Colorado, Duke Univ, American Univ, Univ of SC, Rutgers, Univ of NC-Chapel Hill), veteran organizations, (such as the Special Forces Association, 1st Marine Division Association, DAV, American Legion), and numerous university ROTC units. A number of the organizations said they would try to get the film shown campus-wide, and on television.

Said Mr. Magruder, "There are many forces in our society that would like to keep films like this from the public, the main offender being the university. For example, William Tuttle, professor of American Studies at the Univ of Kansas, who teaches about the Vietnam War, said in a recent edition of the local newspaper,"The one thing we know about the people who fought in Vietnam is that most of them were poor and black."(The Lawrence Journal World, July 15) Said Vietnam vet and former Sec of the Navy James Webb in a recent article "The common claim that it was minorities and the poor who were left to do the dirty work of military service in Vietnam is false. The main imbalance in the war was simply that the privileged avoided their obligations, and have persisted since that time in demeaning the experience in order to protect themselves from the judgment of history." When we sent out a university-wide e-mail quoting data from VFW Magazine that showed the Tuttle statement to be a gross error, there was no acknowledgment and no correction.

Chris White, a graduate teaching assistant in the department wrote back, "Please don't send me this hateful crap anymore." Facts are hateful crap to today's left leaning history departments.

The current flap between an Air Force cadet and a professor of history at St. Xavier University, drawing thousands of letters of protest from veterans, is another example of veterans speaking out when academics make public statements intended to further ideological agendas against America.

A polite request for information about a gathering of political scientists from an Air Force cadet was responded to by Professor Peter N. Kirstein in a typical leftist "Exorcist" reaction, with head spinning and rhetorical green vomit spewing: "You are a disgrace to this country and I am furious you would even think I would support you and your aggressive baby killing tactics of collateral damage. Help you recruit? Who, top guns who reign death and destruction upon nonwhite people throughout the world? Are you serious, sir? Resign your commission and serve your country with honor. No war, no air force cowards who bomb countries without AAA, (anti-aircraft) without possibility of retaliation. You are worse than the snipers. You are imperialists who are turning the whole damn world against us. Sept. 11 can be blamed in part for what you and your cohorts have done to the Palestinians, the VC, the Serbs, a retreating army as Basra. You are unworthy of my support."

THE VC !!! Every cliche in the leftist handbook, plus tears for the Viet Cong. It reminds us of what David Horowitz, a former anti-war leader wrote recently,"Make no mistake. We wanted Hanoi to win the war." The most rabid right-wing fundamentalist has nothing on a professor who has been "offended."Academics today are perpetually constipated with offense over something. But what is really impressive are the professor's rules of engagement. Only "cowards" drop bombs on people they can't see, and if the enemy runs out of anti-aircraft ammunition, to make the fight fair you have to wait until the enemy resupplies. Brilliant!

This is no aberration. The breakdown in logic like this is the norm on campus today, particularly in the social sciences. On top of that they imagine that they occupy some sort of moral high ground, when the average person can clearly see they are talking nonsense.

The President of the university apologized to the Air Force Academy and suspended the professor from teaching and his record will be reviewed next semester before teaching again. We would like to see a lot more of this.

In the 60's the soldiers couldn't respond, but they can this time. No more free rides. This time professors are going to have to defend their positions, without lying about those who serve.

Three documentaries have recently become available that seriously challenge the campus view of the Vietnam War.

The first new film was recently mentioned in a news item out of CNS News.com. Christel and Calvin Crane traveled 14,000 miles across America interviewing Vietnam vets, recorded in a four-part film, "The Long Way Home Project" with introductions by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf (ret.) and commentary by leading figures of the era and a number of prominent war historians. The film was the winner of the 2002 Houston International Film Festival.

The series contains a great deal of material that has been suppressed by the media and campus for decades, such as the positive developments in the years following the Tet Offensive, the success of the pacification program, the progress under Gen. Abrams, the improvement and successes of the South Vietnamese Army, President Thieu's bold land programs and arming of the South Vietnamese people, and the final betrayal of American and South Vietnamese sacrifices by anti-war elements in the U.S. Congress.

The four -volume set of films sells for $69.95. Information on it can be found at www.ourpatriots.com. or by calling 1-800-945-2478. Said the CNS press release, "So far there have been no agreements to broadcast the documentary."As of this writing the History Channel has turned it down.

The second documentary is "Silent Victory", produced by Don C. Hall and Annette R. Hall. A remarkable account on film of Company F- 51st Long Range Patrol(Airborne) - Infantry from a number of perspectives by members looking back 30 years, interspersed with actual footage of the unit in action in Vietnam. Especially revealing is the commentary by H. Norman Schwarzkopf and others on the Tet Offensive , the performance of the media and the anti-war movement. The film has won three awards at various film festivals, one reviewer telling the producers it had won "the highest rating ever." Yet all cable and major networks have returned the film to the producers marked "sight unseen." The film may be purchased at website www.i-served.com for $19.95.

The third recent documentary, "How the Campus Lied About the Vietnam War," was produced by Mr. Magruder, President of Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform. In the mid 80's Mr. Magruder took his home movie camera to Vietnam vet parades in Chicago and Houston and interviewed 62 Vietnam veterans at random, asking them the question that had been studiously voided by the national media, "What do you think about the campus war protestors."Across the board the general response was that the position of the protesters was "false, hypocritical, and damaging to the war effort." ("The Stalwart", K.U. student newspaper). The film that resulted is a one hour representative sample from the 62 interviews. The vets tell how lies by the protesters created a stereotype of them that made it difficult to get jobs and fit back into society. They tell how they were shunned on campus, were attacked at airports, with many forced to hide the fact they were veterans. They tell how they found supplies from American universities in Viet Cong strongholds. They describe the war protests variously as "disgraceful," "unfair," "treasonous," "uninformed," and "demoralizing." They also tell how former war protesters wept in the streets with guilt at national parades, and had to be comforted by those marching. This phenomenon was never mentioned by the media or campus.

With this complimentary distribution the film "How the Campus Lied About Vietnam" is now available by sending $15 to the address below. Also available, the 60 page monograph by Mr. Magruder, (typed, single-spaced), "The War on the Home Front", battles fought at home by V.V.A.R. in support of those who served. $12. Send orders for either to Leonard Magruder, 933 1/2 Massachusetts St., Lawrence, Kansas, 66044. Shipping included. This is a non-profit organization. Proceeds will be used for our next project, a film on the Vietnam Symposium at the Univ. of New York - Stony Brook, the largest ever held. Mr. Magruder served as National Coordinator for this project.

Joels response to Mr. Magruder:

Dear Mr. Magruder:

Please allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Joel Charles Kernodle. I am a 56 yr old USMC infantryman and combat veteran of Vietnam. I have a Purple Heart. I am a retired commercial/industrial finance executive. I live in Indianapolis. I am, and have been, President and co-founder of several civic and veterans organizations. I consider my service in Vietnam to be an honorable sacrifice in Patriotism. I consider the Phoenix-like rebirth of the radical left in protest of the burgeoning attempt of contemporary Patriots to protect this nation, our loved ones, and our way of life to be an enormous and egregious affront to true Americans and Vietnam Veterans and to the memory of our brothers who are forever enscribed upon The Wall these vile miscreants have defiled.

I am also President of the Indiana chapter of the 1st Marine Division Association. I understand tapes and/or information about your organizations efforts and accompanying text exposes of leftist propaganda from, in particular, academia have been given the 1st Marine Division Association. If this is true, please tell me to whom you have presented that to and whom you have been in contact with there. If possible, I would like very much to have whatever materials you will send to me regarding the matter of the offense and the counteroffensive of and to the fraudulent radical disinformants and protestors involved.

I believe in a very strong response to these vile and pathetic creatures, who seem bent upon the destruction of our nation's fabric. The next large gathering of this rabble at our beloved and sacred Wall and other monuments to our fallen military MUST be met with an overwhelming show of force [100,000 minimum] and solidarity; fronted by Vietnam Veterans. I intend to see that the "heads-up" for this gets around expeditously to my fellow Marines, whom I intend to see the "First To Fight" to counter these traitors and protect the honor and dignity of or fallen and our monuments to them.

To this all I would like to add it is with admiration and gratitude that I thank you for your considerable and tireless effort to present the TRUTH.

Respectfully,
Joel Charles Kernodle

pointmanherc@ameritech.net

Macgruders reply to Joel;

Dear Mr. Kernodle: Thank you for contacting me and for your encouraging and supportive comments. You have made major contributions to our nation in many ways and I agree with your observations. During the parade weekends of the late 80's I taped 62 interviews with Vietnam vets and used `10 of them make a film called "How the Campus Lied About Vietnam." To promote two , much more professional ,films, on Vietnam that just came out I sent out 80 complimentary copies of this film to those who requested it. Many universites and vet organizations. One went to Col. Jerry Brown (ret) Chief Administrative Officer, 1st Marine Division Association. I have made another copy and will send it to you. An amatuer production but you might get something out of it.

I'll also send you the last article I sent out which contains my complait about the activists and The Wall. I'll also put you on my distribution list for further material. You can see a number of recent articles at

http://members.aol.com/bear317k/magruder.htm

This includeds the 10-part series "Vietnam and the Media", which was published in a major Vietnamese magazine and read all over the world.

This is a section of a major Vietnam veteran website, Northwest Veterans Newsletter, whose Co-Editor Roger Young is on our Board of Advisors. That address is:

http://members.aol.com/bear317/nwvets.htm

The Stony Brook Symposium took place in the mid-80's. As National Coordinator for that I have a lot of footage on that and mentioned in that recent article that I was going to make another film with that. Thank you again, and let's stay in touch. Sincerely, Leonard Magruder -Pres-V.V.A.R.

The Macgruder article;

VIETNAM VETERANS FOR ACADEMIC REFORM the student auxiliary at the Univ. of Kansas

Leonard Magruder - Founder/President

VVAR NEWSNOTE: Dissention in Washington over Wall prompts urgent, renewed call by K.U. student group for apology from universities for lying about Vietnam and a statement of purpose honoring those who died in Vietnam.

Last week’s newsnote announced the launching of a national movement calling on universities for a confession of moral bankruptcy and apology for having lied to students in the 60’s about Vietnam. The students then used these lies as rationalizations for not serving, and then for lying about those who did serve. Wrote B.G.Burkett, a Vietnam veteran, in a book which prompted the press release, “Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Honor and it History,” “Three and and a half million Americans, our Vietnam veterans, have been unjustly disparaged, ridiculed, and offended. I want an apology from America to every man and woman who served in Vietnam, or the indifference and disrespect heaped on Vietnam veterans living or dead, after the war.These dead men and women exist in a state of conspicuous oblivion. There names are there but nothing else.”

And now there are plans for more “nothing else” and more robbing of honor and history, at the national memorial to the dead of Vietnam in Washington in tragically misguided deference to those in academia who lied about the war.

A story out of the Associated Press yesterday was headlined “Proposed education center at Vietnam Wall aims to skirt controversy of war.” It said that a proposal by the veterans who built the wall would add a structure nearby to “educate visitors, not about the war but about the memorial itself” and is, “speeding ahead in both the House and the Senate where support is overwhelming”. It will house many of the items left at the memorial and have computers where visitors can read about the veterans whose names are on the wall.

Although the National Park Service and the National Capitol Planning Commission both strongly oppose the idea, since many veteran groups do support the idea it will probably pass even though on the immediate surface the proposal seems to have minimum merit. The computers will be a minor contribution as most visitors are only interested in relatives and friends, and know all about them already, and a better idea would be to open up the warehouse where the 62,000 items left at the Wall are held, for people to walk through and see it all. But more important, the idea is really a minor contribution unless somewhere there is also some statement as to the cause for which these men died.

The most disturbing aspect of this story is the apparent need to assure people that the cause for which these 58,000 died will not be mentioned, apparently out of deference to the largely treasonous position of the campus ‘peace’ movement. “Skirt controversy of the war”,“ not about the war”,“basic information about the war without interpreting it”. But most incredible is the statement by the Park Service, “The memorial’s purpose is to separate the issue of the sacrifices of the veterans from the U.S. policy on the war.” Was anything even remotely like this ever said about the Lincoln Memorial, the Iwo Jima Memorial, or any of the dozens of other war memorials in Washington? There were dissenters in every American war, but their position was never institutionalized, especially one as clearly sympathetic to the enemy as this one was.

There are two alternatives here and the time is long overdue to end what Burkett said, “The dead men and women exist in a state of conspicuous oblivion. Their names are there but nothing else.” Obviously they died for some purpose, but it is not mentioned. They either died in “an imperialistic, immoral war of aggression against the people of South Vietnam attempting to unify their country” the position of the campus 'peace’ movement, or they died “fighting for the freedom of the South Vietnamese against Communist aggression from North Vietnam”, the position of the government, the vast majority of the American people, and certain to be the position of those who fought and died. Or, shall we just continue to say nothing, leaving the dead in a state of conspicuous oblivion, continuing to rob them of their honor and history, as Burkett wrote, because America has become too timid to finally repudiate the outrageous lies of those who needed rationalizations for not serving, lies that have long since been exposed.

As National Coordinator for the Vietnam Symposium in l985 at Stony Brook University, NY, with 600 Vietnam vets registered, Mr. Magruder (a former professor of psychology and Director of the counseling and Research Center at the Univ of ND), said in a speech on the campus war protests: “A distinction needs to be made between the campus “peace” movement and the later public sentiment in favor of ending the war. The campus “peace” movement, which came out of the larger, more liberal universities such as Berkeley, Columbia, Yale, Wisconsin, Harvard , and Michigan, opposed the war from the beginning for ideological reasons. Its hostility to traditional American values such as patriotism, honor, and duty, was rooted in the prevailing nihilistic philosophies on campus as found in Freudianism, Behaviorism, Positivism, and Marxism. A study of 118 pieces of literature, for example, written largely by academics and distributed at major anti-war demonstrations throughout the country, clearly revealed a Marxist bias, the philosophy of the enemy. The main argument of the literature was that America was engaged in “aggression” in an “imperialist” plot to block the efforts of nationalist Vietnamese to reunify their country. The Viet Cong, the students were taught, were the real heroes.

In each of its five major offensives the North assumed there would be a popular uprising of the South Vietnamese people against Thieu and the Americans. It never happened. In fact, as a result of the first major offensive, the Tet Offensive, the people of South Vietnam rose up in revulsion and resistance against the North, with the government and the people galvanized into unity for the first time and the South Vietnamese Army almost doubling due to volunteers. In the US the facts made clear by the Tet Offensive that the war was not just a “civil war”, that the South clearly did not wish to live under Communist rule and welcomed American aid, and that it was the North Vietnamese who were engaged in “genocide” and "aggression” with the mass murders of civilians at Hue (5000), and the rocket attacks on helpless civilian populations, should have ended the arguments of the “peace” movement. It was a the moment of truth for those in the universities. They failed the test. The lying continued with renewed fury.

And to its everlasting shame the “peace” movement responded to any hint of victory by American forces at Tet with panic, fearing that their own country might win the war. Polls at the time showed that 51% of those in the “peace” movement favored a victory by the Communists. As David Horowitz, an editor at the time of the radical anti-war movement journal Ramparts later acknowledged, “ Let me make this perfectly clear. Those of us who inspired and then led the antiwar movement did not want just to stop the killing, we wanted the Communists to win.” At no time did the majority of Americans view our objective in South Vietnam as "immoral”, “imperialistic”, or an act of “aggression”. They recognized those arguments as having come from the enemy. The majority of Americans apparently agreed that the true issue was the historically proven totalitarian thrust of Communism.

Later public sentiment in favor of ending the war was based on practical, not “moral” grounds, and held the peace movement in contempt for its clear sympathy for Hanoi. Feeling that the polarization in the US caused by the “peace” movement was prolonging the bloodshed by contributing to Hanoi’s intractability with regard to a peace settlement, and fearing that further polarization would severely damage the country, the American majority began to seek a new strategy. Viewing as clearly immoral the call of the “peace” movement for precipitous withdrawal, the cowardly cry of Out Now! - (before I get drafted) and abandonment of South Vietnam, they settled for President Nixon’s plan for Vietnamization and ‘Peace with Honor’. American forces, having definitively defeated the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese on the battlefield, (though never given credit for this) were then withdrawn, and for two years the South Vietnamese Army, (with l,100,000 soldiers) continued to hold its own against repeated attacks by the North. In the end, however, they collapsed when vindictive anti-war sympathizers in Congress, in an unparalleled act of betrayal of an ally, cut off their ammunition, plunging South Vietnam into the dark night of Communist horror after 30 years of struggle against the North and the loss of 250,000 soldiers.”

Said Mr. Magruder in summary today, “There are now simply no facts that the former war protestors can point to that vindicate their position. The better documented histories of the last decade, and especially the numerous exposes and confessions written by former leaders of North Vietnam, have totally destroyed the arguments of the 60’s radicals. Yet in spite of these facts, they still continue on campus to urge the nation to ignore the correct historical conclusions. To admit to having been wrong in their view of the war would mean not only to face enormous guilt for having supported tyranny and genocide, but even more important, disproof of their ideological (usually Marxist) or philosophical assumptions. They must of psychological necessity cling to the position that they were right, that those who fought were wrong and that there is nothing more to discuss, leaving the veterans to suffer because of their lies.

The battle to end this cowardice, this hypocrisy, this tissue of lies, begins today, on a new battlefield - the universities.

If there is to be any addition to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, it must finally include something along these lines: “These men gave their lives in a struggle for freedom for the South Vietnamese against Communist aggression from North Vietnam.” These men are crying out from their graves to be finally recognized as American soldiers who willingly (two thirds werevolunteers) served their country in a just cause, a battle for freedom, and not the “dupes” of an “immoral” cause as those who did not serve tried to label them. To continue not saying anything is national cowardice, to even mention the anti-war position would be a national disgrace.

Magruder44@aol.com